Coronavirus
- Isabela Penagos
- Feb 24, 2020
- 2 min read
The coronavirus has been a world phenomenon for the last couple weeks. The coronavirus is said to have started from a bat in Asia. This bat came into contact with humans due to a snake having ingested this infected bat and the snake being sold in a wet market in Wuhan. Someone from Wuhan ingested this infected snake and started this world virus. It has caused world chaos however while only having a 4% death rate. Having lived two years in Asia, I understand the importance of health in their culture.
Hong Kong, the place I lived for two years and where my parents still reside, has had many affected however the death toll is quite low compared to the infected. The social and economical impact this virus has caused China as well as Hong Kong is alarming. The social and psychological impact this virus has caused is noticeable. Restaurants are at 5% capacity due to the fact that people are scared to eat in public places, hotels are roughly at 15% capacity when they usually are overbooked, and the city streets are quiet. People don’t feel safe going outside into public places because they don’t want to contract the virus. Being in America now and for me to hear this information is worrying. Hong Kong is one of the busiest most important cities in the world and it’s almost unbelievable to think that the city streets are empty on a Saturday afternoon.
I believe that social media played a big role in the world chaos of the coronavirus. I personally do not believe that this virus is this concerning, however, people in Asia are more skeptical of diseases. The interesting thing is that my mother, coming from a similar background as me, has adopted these hyper lifestyle choices and has also decided to stay in her apartment for the majority of the day to prevent any unnecessary human contact.
The chaos of this pandemic is absolutely crazy.. the lockdown had such a big impact on our everyday lives and our mental health. Mostly needed, but still intense. Learning about the stats, though is quite shocking.. for some reason I thought most things were at least somewhat normal but I guess I was wrong.
Knowing that COVID-19 has led restaurants to Restaurants 5% capacity and hotels at roughly at 15% capacity is really quite a shocker! Usually these restaurants and hotels are overbooked so I can’t imagine how much loss these businesses will suffer from due to this pandemic. I imagine there will be businesses that will have to shut down due to their economic situation. It would be hard to break even in sales with the sales volume during this pandemic. Therefore if these businesses go below the break even point I imagine there will be unfortunate closings due to no profit and even losses. On the other hand, this shows how serious COVID-19 is and how people are taking precaution in order…
It is extremely interesting to read this now that we are in our first week of May. We really had just no idea how fast the virus was able to spread around the world. It made me think about what could have happened if we didn't take the actions we had. The amount of families who have been hurt form the virus is devastating. If it weren't for our health officials taking action immediately i am sure the situation right now could be much much worst. At this point I am so thankful for the people working so hard to keep us safe.
This post is interesting to look back on given how much has changed in the past two months. Though I'm sure in mid-February, most of us would have shared your attitude of disconcern towards the probably and consequences of the virus' spread, clearly we were wrong. In large part, this was likely an important factor that allowed COVID-19 to spread so readily -- the fact that little precautions were taken in areas that were not immediately hit given that few of us have experienced anything like it. As such, it will be interesting to see how seriously be take the next disease outbreak once this all clears up, regardless of how small at first it seems.
Hi Isabela,
Thanks for sharing! Seeing as how we are about a month out from this post I found it to be a very interesting look back into the past. Things certainly have changed concerning COVID-19 and I wonder if your opinions have as well. The death rate in Italy is significantly higher than 4% and the Virus has spread almost exponentially over the past month. Additionally, many U.S states have adopted "stay inside" quarantine procedures, making what your mother was doing mandatory. Obviously, this was extremely hard for most of us to imagine and is unlike anything we have ever experienced before but I would be interested to read an updated blog post of yours about the disease and…